Saturday, August 25, 2012

I am not the manager. I am not the supervisor. But I've seen quite a few tellers come and go during the months I've spent at my job. Some went on to promotions. Some quit. Some lost their job. And I've noticed a pattern.

There is an indefinable, unpinpointable characteristic that distinguishes the good employees from the bad. And it's got something to do with compassion for others.

Employees can put on a show about being polite, but for some of them the politeness comes with relatively little effort because of the concern they have for helping the other guy.

Employees can be hard workers because they know the boss will smile upon them for it, but if their hard work is done only to earn the boss's favor, it's hard to keep up the effort when he's not looking. Others work hard because it's part of their desire to help their customers and their co-workers.

Employees can complain behind the backs of the nasty customers, but then their crabby rebuttals [spoken surreptitiously to co-workers] affect their attitude so that it oozes out around the edges to all the customers. Others understand that a rude customer may be "rude" simply because she didn't hear the cheery greeting to give a pleasant response, or because something tragic is going on his life.

Most people who are looking for jobs these days must apply online. Sometimes hundreds of people apply for a handful of jobs. There is no way for an employer to get that "feel" for what the prospective employee is like, to assess those indefinable "vibes." And there is no way for the guy who's job-hunting to be able to "sell" himself on the basis of that most-important quality. That's hard for the guy who needs a job. But it's also a difficulty for the person who's doing the hiring. I'm beginning more and more to think that, if I'm ever in a position of making hiring-decisions, my gut-level intuition should have a lot more clout than my reason and logic.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Tomatoes are doing nicely. Best year for peppers I've ever had. We ate some awesome stuffed-pepper skillet the other day.

Maggie and I went to the science museum today. They have a bed of nails to lie on (to demonstrate dispersion of pressure). We tried it. Prickly. But not painful.

Bethany and Evan moved back to Madison. You get a big ol' crew of workers on moving day, and yowza, the work goes fast!

Monday was a potluck tailgate party at the Brewers/Cubs game. A whole bunch of people from church attended; it was one of the events for the 50th-anniversary celebration. Fun night. The best part was the home-run ball hit right to our section, the first major-league homer for that player. Maggie has decided that she is a Cubs fan.

This week and next I'm not scheduled for any extra hours at work. I'm just working my own hours without any substituting. I hope all the new tellers work out so that this stability-of-schedule lasts for a while. This week I'm learning to balance the ATM. Next week I will be trained on being a morning-opener. New stuff -- hooray!

Maggie and I cleaned the garage. Now I can use it for lunch tables for a baptism dinner someday soon. :-)

Andrew started classes today. Well, class. He is taking only one this semester. He still has his part-time pizza job. Saturday is his first day of CNA-type home-visitation job.

School (and thus chapel) starts next week. Today was my last day to sleep past 6:30. I should learn to go to bed in the evenings.